He had never learned Manchu since he was a child, but he was able to communicate in Manchu with the old Manchu people in the rural areas of the northeast without obstacles; in order to find Manchu songs, he visited almost all Manchu villages in the country; Like you" and other popular songs, just to let more people come into contact with Manchu. He is the Manchu singer Akshan.

The data picture shows Akshan playing traditional Manchu musical instruments.

Akshan is a Manchu nationality. His Chinese name is Song Xidong. He was born in 1979 in a small town in the Horqin Right Front Banner, Xing'an League, Inner Mongolia. He has been very interested in art and music since he was a child. After graduating from high school, in order to insist on his music dream, he got angry with his father and ran to Beijing alone in 1997, and started a "North Drift" life.

During the "Beijing Drift", Akshan met a fellow villager, Zhang Quansheng, the chief horse head qin player of the original Canglang Band, and helped with Zhang Quansheng's recording studio at the Minzu University of China. There are often other minority singers in the shed. When they learn that Akshan is a Manchu, they will ask questions such as "what is the Manchu language" and "what are the songs of the Manchu". Not knowing his own language, Akshan felt a strong sense of loss, which strengthened his determination to study and explore Manchu music.

The data picture shows Akshan playing the traditional Manchu musical instrument bow and hu.

"I think if you can sing the ballads of your own nation well, you must learn the language of your own nation." Since 2003, Akshan began to learn Manchu. The Minzu students who first taught him were still skeptical about the young singer learning Manchu - so many people who graduated from majors couldn't learn it well, what could this boy who was a half-way monk learn? But after a few years of learning, Akshan has become proficient in using Manchu dialogue and reading.

After being able to speak fluently in Manchu, Akshan began to search for folk Manchu ballads in places where the Manchu population inhabits the whole country. Due to the remote location and inconvenient transportation, most of these areas have preserved the Manchu traditions and customs relatively completely, but most of the elderly who can speak authentic Manchu are in their old age. You can imagine how difficult the process of "collecting wind" is. He said that due to the harsh and difficult conditions, he almost froze to death once by the Songhua River. In the past ten years, with the gradual decline of native speakers of Manchu, Akshan has gradually locked the destination of "collecting the wind" on the coast of Heilongjiang.

The data picture shows Akshan going to a Manchu village to collect folklore.

Talking about the process of "collecting the wind", Akshan said that since 2011, he will first arrange and perform in Beijing every year, and then go to the Manchu village for a short period of more than ten days and a long period when he has enough time and money. A month of "collecting the wind", looking for the local Manchu customs. Today, he has traveled to more than 20 cities and counties and collected a lot of precious video and audio materials. On the basis of sorting out these materials, he composed and adapted nearly 30 Manchu songs such as "Hai Dongqing", "Wang Festival Mountain" and "Wine Song". When he "gathered the wind" again and sang the songs he made to the old Manchu people, the old people all sighed: "It turns out that the Manchu dialect and Manchu songs have not been lost!"

"How can the descendants of heroes forget their hometown, may the landscape of my hometown last forever." This is the lyric in Akeshan's first Manchu song "Wang Festival Mountain", which shows the national pride in the words.

With the progress of "collecting the wind", Akshan gradually felt that he still had a lot to learn and accumulate about the Manchu culture. Especially after the outbreak of the new crown epidemic, Akshan reduced the number of "collecting wind" activities: "In recent years, I have mostly been in 'retreat' time, combing and studying the materials obtained from the previous 'collecting wind', in order to make this knowledge fully available. Use it, let everyone know it, and be accepted by everyone.”

The data picture is Akshan.

In recent years, the development of the music market has not been particularly prosperous, let alone the minority Manchu music, but Akshan remains optimistic: "When I first learned about Manchu music, it was in an endangered state. , International friends already have an objective understanding of Manchu culture and Manchu language."

Akshan added: "Now that people are rich, people have more energy to pursue spiritual pursuits." Especially with the popularity of Qing palace dramas around 2012, there is a trend of renewed interest in Manchu language and Manchu culture. , has also quietly formed in the Manchu group in recent years. "Now people are talking about 'Great Harmony', I think 'Great Harmony' does not mean that everyone is exactly the same, but should be inclusive and cognizant of each other, so that niche things can be 'live' and let more people see, learn."